


Lasting Warmth: A Collection of Armin/Mikasa Vignettes

by Tentaculiferous



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Arumika Week, Baking, Books, Canon Universe, Chores, Established Relationship, F/M, Food, Future Fic, Het, Pregnancy, Reading
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tentaculiferous/pseuds/Tentaculiferous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Armin/Mikasa vignettes written for the prompts provided for AruMika Week on tumblr.<br/>Some will be drabbles, double drabbles, triple drabbles...and some will probably get out of hand and lose any claim on the term drabble whatsover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: Childhood/Past

**Author's Note:**

> For the AruMika Week prompts used here: http://armikasasquad.tumblr.com/post/88901560599/countdown-to-arumika-week-7-days-more-from-june

Mikasa was led to a small room at the back of the clinic. She took her seat in front of the large mahogany desk and waited. The room was mostly bare, except for a few still-life paintings and the bookshelves that lined the walls. 

Books were a thing she associated with Armin. It wasn't like she'd never seen a book before he showed her the odd fantastical old book he loved so much—after all, her own parents had had a few books. She couldn't remember them, but she knew a few had been cookbooks and the others were likewise probably filled with practical knowledge that was useful to have when you lived off alone in the wilderness. The Jaegers too, had books. 

The latest medical texts (and some of the anatomy classics that also lined the clinic walls), cookbooks, novels (Dr. Jaeger was an educated man, after all, and reading for pleasure was the norm in that household), even a few picture books for the children.

Still, it was Armin whose image was inextricably bound to books. As a child, he was rarely without them, and he was the only one of their age that Mikasa ever noticed reading just to be reading. Eren devoured anything on the subject of Titans or the outside walls, but that was more to feed his life's passion than just to read. 

As she waited for the doctor to arrive, she tried to remember all the books she had seen him reading throughout the years. When they were younger, he'd read simpler things. Sure, he'd do anything he could to get a hold of textbooks or non-fiction, forbidden or otherwise, but he'd also been perfectly willing to indulge in the frivolous fiction that the educated and well-off favored. Now, she never saw him reading anything that wasn't _useful_ in some way, and it saddened her.

He was too busy these days. Other than the time he sat aside to be with her, he was always working, or studying something that would help him solve some problem or other. 

She would simply have to order him to read something frivolous once in a while. He was going to get wrinkles early if he kept spending his hours furrowing his brow over some obscure, nigh-incomprehensible old text.

The office door opened, interrupting her thoughts. The doctor had finally arrived. He was a young man, smiling and cheerful. It wasn't too often he got young and healthy patients; the frontier outside the walls was a dangerous place. 

"Your test results are in, Mrs. Arlert." 

She waited expectantly. 

"You're pregnant." 

Mikasa stared at the man. He was just beginning to become unnerved by her deadpan expression (maybe this wasn't as good news as he thought?) when the corners of her lips quirked up ever so slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this event leads to some more Armin/Mikasa fic being created--because WOW cannot I not believe the tiny amounts of fic available for this ship. They're both main characters, spend lots of time together, and are adorable. There should be about 30x as much fic as there is )':.


	2. Day 2: Strength/Wisdom

The jar would not open. Armin twisted at the lid, putting all his might into it, and he still could not get it to budge. Panting, he wiped his slim, delicate fingers on his shirt. They hurt, he could see red marks on them, slightly indented by the groove of the jar lid. 

He tried wrapping the tail-end of his shirt around it and twisting, in the hopes that the friction would help. It was even less effective than his sweaty palms had been. 

He stared at it despairingly. He was on kitchen duty, a work assignment he was given quite often. Apparently he was one of the very few trainees that did not succumb to the temptation that all the food emanated. Although few of the trainees were as bad as Sasha (who could make sacks of potatoes and boxes of canned pease disappear like magic) most of them were hungry teenagers whose appetites were even further stoked by the hard physical labor they had to do daily. If they were too honest to slip food into their pockets, most of them saw nothing wrong with slipping it into their mouths to eat while they cooked. 

There was a lone chef working at the trainee camp; a surly middle-aged man who was never without a cigarette dangling from his lips. He'd swat a thieving trainee with whatever potentially harmful kitchen implement was nearby—one day, a quick swat with a hot metal spatula to Eren's light fingers, another day a brass bundt pan would be clapped down forcibly on Connie's smooth pate after he feloniously drank a ladleful of the soup—and put the used spoon back in the pot. The heaviest, battle-scarred cast-iron skillet was of course reserved for Sasha's thick skull. She was never, ever supposed to be allowed through the kitchen doors.

The chef though, had no tolerance for any of the other fools, and had apparently worked out who the honest (or disinclined) trainees were, and they were always in rotation on the kitchen.

And so Armin was in with a good bunch. Marco, cheerful and kind. Bertholdt, quiet and inoffensive. Mikasa, a quick and efficient worker. 

Still, he thought, as he stared at the hateful jars of strawberry jam, there wasn't a single one of them he would like to ask for help. 

He was a 15-year old _soldier_ , even if he didn't look it, and what could be more pathetic than having to trot over to your bigger and stronger teammates and admit to them that you were so weak you couldn't open a damned jar? 

He was still fretting over the jars, contemplating more kitchen tools he could try to use to prise the jar open, when Mikasa swooshed by. She had trays of bread dough in each hand, freshly kneaded for the ovens. She stopped abruptly, and sat the trays on the counter nearby. To Armin's horror—and relief—she grabbed the jar up and twisted it. The popping sounds were audible as she moved down the line of jars effortlessly. Without a word or a backward glance she grabbed up her trays and swept on. 

Armin stood there for a moment, as if suckerpunched. 

To say it was as if there were butterflies in his stomach was such a cliche, but it did feel like there was something winged in there, fluttering its wings rapidly and wanting to come up. It felt like it was going to, a wave of dizziness and oddness that sounded thoroughly unpleasant but which he craved. He glanced over at her, sliding the loaves into the big brick oven. 

Everything she did looked effortless, perfect. How was it that someone could be so strong and perfect, and another could be useless and weak? Everything he did, even if he tried his best, was such a clumsy failure. Even his baking skills, talented enough to have him entrusted with the officers' jam tarts, were so easily stymied by something as basic and rudimentary as a jar lid. 

It didn't matter. That's what he told himself as he began dipping the knife into the jam and putting dollops of it onto the tarts. Mikasa, the most perfect person he knew, was the one who was the most insistent that there were different kinds of strength—and that Armin's was just as valuable as hers. Armin didn't believe _that_ , but he did get her point. So what if 99% of the people here could open a jar lid effortlessly—a lot of them couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. It took all kinds.

Besides, it was more reason for Mikasa to come over to him. He licked a spot of jam off his fingers. There were definitely benefits. Maybe he'd ask her to help him put the tarts in the oven—that wooden peel was awful heavy, maybe he needed someone strong to help him manage it...

 

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg. I had to add so many terms to LibreOffice's dictionary for this. Who knew 'prise' was an alternate spelling? I didn't. 
> 
> A peel, by the way, is that big wooden flat shovel thing that chefs use to put pizzas and bread loves into big hot ovens. And let me tell you, those things are often actually quite heavy! Especially when covered in bread and goodies. Of course Armin can manage it, but any excuse to get the girl of his dreams to hold his arm. Armin, you sly dog you...
> 
> Also I realize this was kind of an odd place to go with that prompt. But I just let word prompts take me where they will, I never focus much on staying with them thematically.


	3. Day 3: Secrets

Day 3: Secrets/Confession

They met in secret, and parted discreetly. Armin wasn't sure if Eren would understand, and so he put off the day when their love would inevitably be known to all. Mikasa didn't question it--she didn't seem as nerve-wracked by the idea of them being an official couple as he did. Not that she seemed to ever be nerve-wracked by anything.

Armin sighed, pulling the thick wool blanket up higher over their shoulders. That was part of what he loved about her, that she was always cool and collected. His own nerves tended to get the better of him at times, but he knew as long as he had her by his side, that she would be able to pull him out of any panic. 

Content lying in her arms, he drifted off into sleep, thinking "We'll tell everyone tomorrow".

**Author's Note:**

> As always, any feedback, kind or cutting, is loved <3


End file.
